35mm · Film photography · Photography

Circo Raluy Legacy

Today has been split (so far) into four main sections.

Firstly, my dad paid his usual Sunday morning visit. He arrived a little earlier than I expected because he’d walked it (he still walks miles most days – not bad for a guy in his mid-eighties. I hope I might be as fit when I get to that age!) and I was still sorting the cats out when he got here. I didn’t hear him come in, but I’m not sure if this was because I was outside, or if my hearing is getting worse.

The second chunk of the day was spent developing a roll of Ilford HP5+ that I shot recently. This one was deliberately pushed a stop (unlike yesterday’s accidental push) and the negatives look nice. I’ll maybe get to scan them later this week.

After the developing was done and all the gear tidied away I grabbed something to eat and then watched The French Connection on TV. Hearing the sad news of Gene Hackman’s death (along with his wife and dog) made me remember I’d never watched the movie (I’ve seen the car chase scene on clip shows many times though), so I decided to put that right. I enjoyed the movie a lot. It’s interesting to see how film making styles have changed over time.

The fourth part has been scanning some negatives – a roll of Kodak Gold shot with the Kodak H35N half-frame camera I got for Christmas from my Secret Santa. I’ll say more about this camera and the results in a future post, but the 70-something frames seem to be taking forever to scan. As I type this I still have two full strips to go, and I’ve been scanning a strip a day since the middle of the week!

The rest of the evening will be spent watching TV.

I mentioned the circus – Circo Raluy Legacy – that made up part of Barcelona’s Christmas attractions beside the marina in my post a couple of days ago, and here’s a picture of it.

Circo Raluy Legacy

Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 22 December 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

A tiring day

It’s been a good day today. Not only did I have the time to take an outing with my camera(s), the weather was also perfect too. This sort of alignment of the fates is a rarity!

I decided to take a day trip to Lincoln. Lincoln is a nice city to wander around with plenty to see and photograph, and it has the added bonus of only being about an hour’s drive away.

The weather forecast had given the impression of clear blue skies which, while better in many regards to flat grey skies, can also be a little uninteresting, but I was blessed with blue skies full of streaks of thin high-altitude cloud, meaning I got the benefit of the good light with the bonus of interesting textures.

I managed to shoot three-and-a-half rolls of film – two-and-a-half colour, and a roll of B&W.

Although it was a great day, there was one small hiccup – I forgot to change the ASA dial on my Olympus OM-10 and shot the entire roll of Agfa APX 100 at 400ASA. This normally wouldn’t be a problem as I’ve pushed film on many occasions before (even if this time it was accidental), but it seems there is very little data out there on pushing Agfa APX 100 beyond 200ASA.

It looks like I can develop it for 25 minutes(!) in Rodinal 1+50, but there are no times for Ilfotec DD-X. There are calculations that can be used to get a rough idea of how long to push films, but I prefer to use tried and tested methods – I think there will be some nice photos on the roll and I don’t want to ruin them with ham-fisted experimentation.

Other alternatives include stand or semi-stand development (but, again, it’s not something I’ve done before, and I’m a bit worried about maintaining the temperature to avoid bromide drag), and splashing out on a bottle of Ilford HC (or HC-110, or one of the other variants) – which also has a recipe for pushing the film two stops. Or rather for pushing Kentmere 100 by two stops (I believe they are the same film stock).

Anyway, I’ll be sure to let my reader know what I decide to do and how I fare. Wish me luck!

When you just need a good sit down

Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 22 December 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Big wheel

One of the Barcelona Christmas attractions was situated beside the marina and consisted of many more food and drink stands, plus attractions such as a large Ferris Wheel, which can be seen in both of today’s photos. There was a circus too, but I’ll post a picture of that on another day.

It’s been a somewhat sad day today. It was the last day for most of the people impacted by the wave of compulsory redundancies that hit our team after Christmas. There are still a couple of people here until the end of March, but I had to say goodbye to the others. I’m still in contact with most of them on social media, but it’s not the same as being able to reach out to them as part of the team.

I’m sure they will go on to better and brighter things, and I wish them every success, but I’m gonna miss them.

Leaning on a lamppost
Ferris wheel

Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 20 December 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

El Caganer

My wife and I took a trip to Barcelona the weekend before Christmas. The main reason for the visit was to go see the festive markets, although this actually didn’t take up much of the three nights we were there.

The markets were nice enough, and importantly, different to those that we tend to get in the UK so there was some novelty in seeing different types of stalls. This being said, there was a lot of duplication in the stall types in the Barcelona Christmas Markets, with there being a lot of repetition of decorations, miniature nativity figurines and dioramas, and El Caganer figures.

The latter were something I’d not experienced before. El Caganer is roughly translated into English as “The Pooper” and is a peasant figure in traditional dress squatting down to poop (with a significant deposit made!). In Spanish Nativity scenes (which can be large dioramas depicting entire towns, rather than just the stable scene), the figure is positioned somewhere out of the way to be discovered (I expect it might be frowned upon to place him beside the manger…). While the original figure wears traditional garb, the tradition has also evolved to take account of the multitude of celebrities and mascots we have in modern times, and you can find pooping figures in the guise of almost anyone: pop stars, movie characters, videogame figures, royalty, politicians – including one stall which had a crapping Donald Trump complete with a bleeding ear from the assassination attempt! – and more. The range was certainly considerable and diverse!

You can browse a range of Caganer figurines at the official website even.

Today’s picture is of a Caganer stall at one of Barcelona’s Christmas Markets.

Something good that happened today…

I think I might rest this section of my daily blog. Not because it’s a bad idea – I fully intend to keep recognising the good things in my life – which is a good thing to do. But I’m considerate of the fact that sometimes they can maybe feel a little trivial to post about, so I think I’ll save these bits for when the “something good” is a bit more notable than my having eaten a nice pastie for lunch or something.

Caganer

Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 21 December 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

No more golf

The photo today is of the clubhouse at Renishaw Golf Course. Or should I say the former Renishaw Golf Course, because it closed last year. The course is bordered by the River Rother at its eastern boundary and as such is subject to flooding. I would often drive past following periods of heavy rain and see some of the fairways submerged, perhaps due to the rainfall alone, but perhaps also when flood defences have been engaged on the river, causing it to flood in certain areas to protect others.

I don’t believe the club house ever flooded as it’s at a higher elevations, but it’s now up for sale.

I have more photos from the golf course that I’ve taken in recent months. It’s amazing how quick nature begins to reclaim such places when they are no longer actively maintained.

Something good that happened today…

Our house (just to be clear, not the Renishaw Golf Course clubhouse!) is currently up for sale as we’re hoping to move to a bungalow (albeit a large bungalow suitable for the four of us). Someone who came to look at our house last week has offered the asking price, which is good. We now have the challenge of finding somewhere that we would like to move into which, given the dearth of such properties on the market at present, may take some time..

No more golfing

Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 9mins.

Taken on 26 October 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Phone box and town hall

There are still a number of the old K6 telephone boxes in Sheffield city centre, a lot of them clustered around the town hall area. This one stands on Leopold Street and has seen better days. I’ve photographed it on quite a few occasions, and it’s featured in the blog on at least one previous occasion.

There are still numerous K6 phone boxes around the country, but the ones out of town centres rarely contain telephones anymore, now tending to be used to house mini-libraries, or sometimes defibrillators.

Something good that happened today…

I had a call with a customer that I had been a little nervous about (this is not unusual, I often feel nerves before such calls, despite never having had one go badly), but it went well, which is always a relief. People I’ve been on customer calls with have always fed back on how confident and composed I am, but my own inner imposter-syndrome tends to try and tell me otherwise.

On Leopold Street

Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 9mins.

Taken on 25 October 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Muriel

Muriel is the title of the piece of street art seen painted on the gable-end of the building in today’s photo. It’s by local artist, Pete McKee and had been there since 2018. Sadly though, someone has seen fit to stain Muriel’s coat.

Something good that happened today…

I’ve been backing files up onto an external hard drive for a while now, but was conscious of the fact that I probably wasn’t doing it very efficiently. Today I’ve rectified that and now have a much improved, simpler, and mostly hands-off method, so I’m happy about that.

Stained

Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 9mins.

Taken on 25 October 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Lounging

Outside Leeds Art Gallery there are a number of brightly coloured “loungers” for people to sit and, well, lounge upon. I took a couple of pictures, but the first is the best because the couple on the red lounger make a nice counterpoint to the Henry Moore “Reclining Woman” sculpture on the plinth above.

Something good that happened today…

It’s Friday, which is almost always good, so I’ll go with that today.

Double-lounging
Lounging

Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Kodak Elite Chrome 200 (expired 2004) . Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 5 October 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Around the courthouse

These four photos were all taken around Leeds Combined Courts Centre. I found the brickwork and the architecture made for interesting photographs, and the nice weather didn’t hurt where the expired slide film was concerned, either.

Something good that happened today…

I’ve had a busy day at work, mostly taken up with meetings. Sometimes days like this can be frustrating because there’s insufficient time between calls to get on with the work I need to do. While that was still the case to an extent, all the calls I was on felt productive, and I came away from them feeling like something had been achieved, which is good.

Court house
Court and berries
Hazard tape
Monolith

Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Kodak Elite Chrome 200 (expired 2004) . Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 5 October 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Man of brick

This sculpture was stood in a corner of the main entrance gallery in Leeds Art Gallery. It would be incredibly impressive in scale if those were full size bricks, but in reality the figure is not much larger than a normal person. It was a photogenic looking character though, regardless of size.

Something good that happened today…

The robin was on the garden this morning again while I sorted out the cat litter tray (always a delightful task…). Today it flew over an alighted on the wall a couple of feet from where I stood, before quickly shooting off to hide in the laurel bush. At this time I hadn’t yet put out any bird food (the current breakfast for them is a selection of sunflower hearts and toast crusts) and in my mind I imagined that this small display of bravery was a polite nudge for me to hurry up and put some food on the grass.

Empire State Human

Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Kodak Elite Chrome 200 (expired 2004) . Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 5 October 2024